“What I can’t understand,” Seth said, “is how anybody who is fool enough to let fire insurance lapse can be an even greater fool by not telling his brother about it. That in a nutshell is what I can’t understand.”
“What beats me,” Porter said, “is how the same person who has the nerve to fire a place of business for the insurance also does so without consulting his partner, especially when his partner just happens to be his brother.”
“Allus I was trying to do,” said Seth, “was save you from the criminal culpability of being an accessory before, to, and after the fact, plus figuring you might be too chickenhearted to go along with it.”
“Allus I was trying to do,” said Porter, “was save you from worrying about financial matters you would be powerless to contend with, plus figuring it would just be an occasion for me to hear further from you on the subject of those bow ties.”
“Well, you did buy one powerful lot of bow ties.”
“I knew it.”
“Something like a Pullman car full of bow ties, and it’s not like every man and boy in Schuyler County’s been getting this mad passion for bow ties of late.”
“I just knew it.”
“I wasn’t the one brought up the subject, but since you went and mentioned those bow ties—”
“Maybe I should of mentioned the spats,” Porter said.
“Oh, I don’t want to hear about spats.”
“No more than I wanted to hear about bow ties. Did we sell one single damn pair of spats?”
“We did.”
“We did?”
“Feller bought one about fifteen months back. Had Maryland plates on his car, as I recall. Said he always wanted spats and didn’t know they still made ’em.”
“Well, selling one pair out of a gross isn’t too bad.”
“Now you leave off,” Seth said.
“And you leave off of bow ties?”
“I guess.”
“Anyway, the bow ties and the spats all burned up in the same damn fire,” Porter said.
“You know what they say about ill winds,” Seth said. “I guess there’s a particle of truth in it, what they say.”
While it didn’t do the Dettweiler brothers much good to discuss spats and bow ties, it didn’t solve their problems to leave off mentioning spats and bow ties. By the time they finished their conversation all they were back to was square one, and the view from that spot wasn’t the world’s best.
The only solution was bankruptcy, and it didn’t look to be all that much of a solution.
“I don’t mind going bankrupt,” one of the brothers said. (I think it was Seth. Makes no nevermind, actually. Seth, Porter, it’s all the same who said it.) “I don’t mind going bankrupt, but I sure do hate the thought of being broke.”
“Me too,” said the other brother. (Porter, probably.)
“I’ve thought about bankruptcy from time to time.”
“Me too.”
“But there’s a time and a place for bankruptcy.”
“Well, the place is all right. No better place for bankruptcy than Schuyler County.”
“That’s true enough,” said Seth. (Unless it was Porter.) “But this is surely not the time. Time to go bankrupt is in good times when you got a lot of money on hand. Only the damnedest kind of fool goes bankrupt when he’s stony broke busted and there’s a depression going on.”
What they were both thinking on during this conversation was a fellow name of Joe Bob Rathburton who was in the construction business over to the other end of Schuyler County. I myself don’t know of a man in this part of the state with enough intelligence to bail out a leaky rowboat who doesn’t respect Joe Bob Rathburton to hell and back as a man with good business sense. It was about two years ago that Joe Bob went bankrupt and he did it the right way. First of all he did it coming off the best year’s worth of business he’d ever done in his life. Then what he did was he paid off the car and the house and the boat and put them all in his wife’s name. (His wife was Mabel Washburn, but no relation to the Washburns who have the Schuyler County First National Bank. That’s another family entirely.)
Once that was done, Joe Bob took out every loan and raised every dollar he possibly could, and he turned all that capital into green folding cash and sealed it in quart Mason jars which he buried out back of an old pear tree that’s sixty-plus years old and still bears fruit like crazy. And then he declared bankruptcy and sat back in his Mission rocker with a beer and a cigar and a real big-tooth smile.
“If I could think of anything worth doing,” Porter Dettweiler said one night, “why, I guess I’d just go ahead and do it.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Seth said.
“But I can’t,” Porter said.
“Nor I either.”
“You might pass that old jug over here for a moment.”
“Soon as I pour a tad for myself, if you’ve no objection.”
“None whatsoever,” said Porter.
They were over at Porter’s place on the evening when this particular conversation occurred. They had taken to spending most of their evenings at Porter’s on account of Seth had a wife at home, plus a daughter named Rachel who’d been working at the Ben Franklin store ever since dropping out of the junior college over at Monroe Center. Seth didn’t have but the one daughter. Porter had two sons and a daughter, but they were all living with Porter’s ex-wife, who had divorced him two years back and moved clear to Georgia. They were living in Valdosta now, as far as Porter knew. Least that was where he sent the check every month.
“Alimony jail,” said Porter.
“How’s that?”
“What I said was alimony jail. Where you go when you quit paying on your alimony.”
“They got a special jug set aside for men don’t pay their alimony?”
“Just an expression. I guess they put you into whatever jug’s the handiest. All I got to do is quit sendin’ Gert her checks and let her have them cart me away. Get my three meals a day and a roof over my head and the whole world could quit nagging me night and day for money I haven’t got.”
“You could never stand it. Bein’ in a jail day in and day out, night in and night out.”
“I know it,” Porter said unhappily. “There anything left in that there jug, on the subject of jugs?”
“Some. Anyway, you haven’t paid Gert a penny in how long? Three months?”
“Call it five.”
“And she ain’t throwed you in jail yet. Least you haven’t got her close to hand so’s she can talk money to you.”
“Linda Mae givin’ you trouble?”
“She did. Keeps a civil tongue since I beat up on her the last time.”
“Lord knew what he was doin’,” Porter said, “makin’ men stronger than women. You ever give any thought to what life would be like if wives could beat up on their husbands instead of the other way around?”
“Now I don’t even want to think about that,” Seth said.
You’ll notice nobody was mentioning spats or bow ties. Even with the jug of corn getting discernibly lighter every time it passed from one set of hands to the other, these two subjects did not come up. Neither did anyone speak of the shortsightedness of failing to keep up fire insurance or the myopia of incinerating a building without ascertaining that such insurance was in force. Tempers had cooled with the ashes of Dettweiler Bros. Fine Fashions for Men, and once again Seth and Porter were on the best of terms.